Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to speak today about a matter that is causing great concern up and down the coast of Queensland. The Gillard government currently has a proposal which increases the number of marine reserves from 27 to 60. If this proposal succeeds, I believe it will go down as one of the worst decisions that this Australian government has ever made in terms of our resources. The proposal has absolutely nothing to do with conserving our oceans, as we already lead the world in ocean and fishing management—and fishing is essentially all that we manage. The real threats to our oceans and the fish in them, such as pollution and introduced organisms, are being completely and apparently deliberately ignored by this government. Yet it is claimed by the government that it is creating protected areas.

The Australian public are being deceived. The quality of Australian fisheries is recognised as amongst the healthiest and best managed in the world. Australia, in fact, ranks fourth in the world on the UN Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries after Norway, the USA and Canada. The Australian Fisheries Management Authority has demonstrated that Australian fisheries have been consistently ranked among the world's best in independent reports by international experts in peer reviewed journals. The Australian Marine Conservation Society, which is behind the push to make the Coral Sea a no-go zone, has conceded that the Coral Sea has not had any impacts from commercial fishing. I have spoken to numerous scientists on this issue—as have many of my colleagues representing Queensland electorates—and they are concerned that large areas are being locked up for the wrong reasons. Fishing is not having a significant impact on our oceans, yet the Australian government wants to lock fishers out of our waters.

It is a very serious matter that the government is prepared to ruin the fishing industry, cut off a vital food source, compromise our oceans and make wild-caught fish a thing of the past just so it can appease the green groups that keep it in government. All of this is in the name of alleged marine protection—which, of course, it is not.

Australia already imports between 72 and 75 per cent of its fish even though we have the world's third-largest fishing zone. That is after the United States and France. But we rank 61st in fisheries production. Let us look at that: the third-biggest fishing zone but the 61st-largest number of fish products. The current government is not interested in the slightest in encouraging sustainable use of what is a completely renewable and vital resource. It is, in fact, actively discouraging it.

If this proposal goes ahead, 77.6 per cent of east coast Queensland waters will be in marine parks. That is almost eight times the international benchmark of 10 per cent. More Queensland waters will be locked up in marine park areas than anywhere else in the world. The Coral Sea will become a no-go zone. We are talking about an area that covers approximately 989,842 square kilometres—more than half the size of the state of Queensland. Just imagine what would be said if Minister Burke were proposing locking up half of Queensland's farming areas. What would that do to our food source and, more importantly, to future production of food?

Without the Coral Sea Australia will never be internationally competitive in tuna fishing, and yet the world's biggest fishery is right at our doorstep. We have gifted our share of the Coral Sea's highly migratory tuna resources to other nations including Korea, China, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands and indirectly to the US and Japan, who have licensing agreements with those countries. They will be fishing for tuna; we will not.

We will be gifting our share of the world's biggest fisheries to everybody else who wants to come fish in the Western Pacific, guaranteeing other countries a market to sell fish back to us. We will not ever have a significant tuna fishery, so we will have to import it forever. Canned tuna is already our biggest fish import. Other countries will be permitted to fish in their part of the Coral Sea, but for Australians it will be a no-go zone. This is despite the fact that we have one of the best managed and most sustainable fishing industries in the world. If the proposal goes ahead, it will put hundreds of fishers out of business, making us reliant on imported seafood, again with the irony that that seafood is caught by fishing industries that do not have the same strict rules as we impose. We already import between 72 and 75 per cent of our seafood, and this figure will increase if the proposal proceeds.

Australia wants fresh wild-caught fish from well-regulated fisheries, not from fisheries that do not meet the same green credentials as Australia's. It is Australian consumers who in the end will pay the price along with every fishing related business in the country. The environment minister has said that this proposal is pushing the envelope; it sure is, but it is not pushing it in any favourable way. He is sealing the fate of people in the fishing and tourism industry right up and down the Queensland coast. This proposal will have a huge negative effect on Australian consumers, recreational and commercial fishers, fish wholesalers, retailers and exporters, fishing and charter businesses, pleasure boats, bait and tackle outlets, slipways, marine engine and marine trades and services—and that is before we even start to talk about the effect it will have on the fishing related tourism business and on the communities up and down the Queensland coast that depend on these industries to stay in business.

The Australian government makes all sorts of arguments about going ahead with this proposal, but Australians should let the facts speak for themselves. No amount of spin from this government and the self-serving, often not peer reviewed research from groups that stand to benefit from this proposal can deny that our fisheries are in great shape and it is not fishing that is harming our waters. The government's own official reports confirm this. I want to stress the point that Australian fishers have gone to a great deal of trouble to keep their green credentials by using demonstrably sustainable fishing methods. We are world leaders in sustainability, and because of this the government is apparently proposing to lock us out of our own waters. The reason the government is doing this, of course, is to keep the Greens happy so they can stay in business.

Minister Bourke must explain why he is prepared to ruin the fishing industry and so many ancillary businesses that rely on the fishing industry. He must explain why he is compromising the world's oceans because Australia will have no choice but to import fish from countries with less sustainable fishing practices.

I urge all Australians who want to protect our oceans, who want to have a fishing industry and who eat Australian wild-caught seafood to hold the government to account. The proposed network has absolutely nothing to do with science but everything to do with politically appeasing the Greens and the major groups which keep Labor in power. This proposal will be a disaster and I warn the Labor government, and Minister Bourke, that it will cost them votes at the next election. My colleague, Mr Warren Entsch, tells me that he has collected over 6,000 signatures on a petition. In Port Douglas, 1,500 people out of a community of 4,000 have signed that petition—that is the level of concern they have about the issue. I urge anyone listening to join myself, Senator Boswell and Ms Gambaro for a boat rally at Sinbad Street, Cabbage Tree Creek at Shornecliff at 10:30 this Sunday morning. (Time expired)